Bezos predicts AI will create labor shortage, envisions moving polluting industry to space

AI optimism against rising fears

Jeff Bezos took to the stage at the VivaTech conference in Paris on Wednesday with a bullish message: artificial intelligence will create, not destroy, jobs. He directly countered widespread anxiety, saying,

“I totally disagree with this point of view. And I think, in fact, AI is going to create a labour shortage.”

His argument rests on the idea that human ambition is unlimited and technology merely removes barriers, opening new fields of work. Yet the backdrop is stark. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month found half of Americans fear AI could put them or a family member out of a job. US employers announced 97,000 layoffs in May, roughly 40 percent tied to AI adoption. Amazon itself has reduced its corporate workforce by about 30,000 positions since late last year, partially through automation, and CEO Andy Jassy has previously said AI will eliminate some roles.

Prometheus and the new AI frontier

Bezos highlighted his startup Prometheus, founded in 2024 and already valued at $41 billion with 150 employees across three countries, as it seeks to raise $100 billion. Its focus is on creating AI that builds things, not just knows things, delivering autonomous engineering from design through manufacturing. He told the audience,

“We are living in the greatest moment in history. There has never been a better time to start a company.”

Prometheus aims to empower engineers to develop tools that speed up physical production. The UK Trades Union Congress, however, warned that AI could repeat "the disaster of deindustrialisation," with shareholders profiting while jobs are degraded or displaced, though it conceded that with proper safeguards workers could share in productivity gains.

A planet-garden and industrial exodus

Bezos also unfolded his long-term space vision, arguing that polluting industries should eventually move off Earth.

“If space travel gets reliable enough and inexpensive enough, and we can get materials from asteroids and near-Earth objects and the moon, then this garden planet can be returned to its pre-Industrial Revolution state,”

he said. He described the environment as the sole area where the world is worse off than 500 years ago, listing declines in illiteracy, infant mortality and poverty as evidence of broad progress. The solution, in his view, lies in space-based manufacturing and resource extraction.

Lunar priority and Blue Origin’s rocky road

Unlike Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which targets Mars, Bezos insisted the Moon is the immediate priority.

“We’re going to the Moon to stay, not just to visit,”

he stated, noting it can be reached in three and a half days and its low gravity makes lifting materials vastly cheaper. Blue Origin holds a $188 million NASA contract to deliver rovers and equipment for an uncrewed lunar landing mission, dubbed Mark 1, expected to launch early in the coming period. But the company is also contending with a May explosion of an uncrewed New Glenn rocket during a ground test at Cape Canaveral, Florida. CEO David Limp, who joined Bezos on stage, said reconstruction of the launch pad has begun and described the incident as a gut punch that nevertheless provided valuable learnings.

Market reality and the AI labor debate

Bezos’s appearance underscored a widening gap between tech leaders’ sunny projections and on-the-ground labor trends. Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, now an adviser to Microsoft and Anthropic, recently said AI is already hurting young people’s job prospects. Unions across South Korea and Hollywood writers have also mobilized against AI’s encroachment. While Bezos frames AI as a force that will unleash endless new occupations, the immediate data shows significant job churn, fueling a tense global debate about the pace and ethics of automation.